Obituaries

Karl Fleming, Journalist Who Covered Civil Rights Era, Dies at 84

Karl Fleming, a former Newsweek reporter who dodged bullets and choked on tear gas while covering some of the most momentous events of the civil rights era, died on Aug. 11 at his home in Los Angeles. He was 84.The cause was respiratory illness, his son Charles said.A son of the South, Mr. Fleming was in Tuscaloosa, Ala., on June 11, 1963, when Gov. George C. Wallace fulfilled his pledge to “stand in the schoolhouse door” and then stepped aside when handed a presidential order to allow two black students to enroll at the University of Alabama. Days later, Mr. Fleming was in Jackson, Miss., reporting on the murder of the civil rights leader Medgar Evers.He covered the Freedom Summer of 1964, when college students from around the country went to Mississippi to join in a voter registration drive. And after three of those volunteers — Michael Schwerner, James Chaney and Andrew Goodman — were jailed, released and found shot to death weeks later, Mr. Fleming was one of the first two reporters to arrive in Philadelphia, Miss....

Sally Ride, American Woman Who Shattered Space Ceiling

Sally Ride, the first American woman to fly in space, died on Monday at her home in San Diego. She was 61.The cause was pancreatic cancer, her company, Sally Ride Science, announced on its Web site.Dr. Ride, a physicist who was accepted into the space program in 1978 after she answered a newspaper ad for astronauts, flew on the shuttle Challenger on June 18, 1983, and on a second mission in 1984. At 32, she was also the youngest American in space.She later became the only person to sit on both panels investigating the catastrophic shuttle accidents that killed all astronauts on board — the Challenger explosion in 1986 and the Columbia crash in 2003....

Forrest S. McCartney, a Top NASA Official, Dies at 81

Forrest S. McCartney, a retired Air Force lieutenant general who played a central role in developing military spy satellites and the MX intercontinental missile system before being appointed head of NASA’s civilian-run Kennedy Space Center not long after the space shuttle Challenger exploded, died Tuesday in a hospice near Cape Canaveral, Fla. He was 81.The cause was cancer, his daughter Worthy McCartney said.General McCartney was given command of the space center 18 months after the Challenger exploded on Jan. 28, 1986, killing all seven crew members aboard and leading to the suspension of the shuttle orbiter program. His deployment from the ranks of a largely secret military space program made him the focus of initial apprehension in the parallel civilian space-exploration universe....

Ernest Borgnine, Oscar-Winning Actor, Dies at 95

Ernest Borgnine, the rough-hewn actor who seemed destined for tough-guy characters but won an Academy Award for embodying the gentlest of souls, a lonely Bronx butcher, in the 1955 film “Marty,” died Sunday in Los Angeles. He was 95.His death, at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center, was announced by Harry Flynn, his longtime spokesman.Mr. Borgnine made his first memorable impression in films at the age of 37, appearing in “From Here to Eternity” (1953) as Fatso Judson, the sadistic stockade sergeant who beats Frank Sinatra’s character, Private Maggio, to death. But Paddy Chayefsky, who wrote “Marty” as a television play, and Delbert Mann, who directed it (Rod Steiger was the star of that version), saw something beyond brutality in Mr. Borgnine and offered him the title role when it was made into a feature film....

Jack Lacy, Who Prosecuted Klansman, Dies at 69

BRANDON, Miss. (AP) — Jack Lacy Jr., who as an assistant United States attorney led the successful prosecution of a former Ku Klux Klansman in a civil-rights-era killing that was part of a failed plot to assassinate the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., died on Friday at his home here. He was 69.The cause was a single gunshot to the head, most likely self-inflicted, said the Rankin County coroner, Jimmy Roberts.Mr. Lacy, a former disc jockey and teacher, earned his law degree at 40 and worked in the Mississippi attorney general’s office....

Nora Ephron: Writer and Filmmaker With a Genius for Humor

Nora Ephron, an essayist and humorist in the Dorothy Parker mold (only smarter and funnier, some said) who became one of her era’s most successful screenwriters and filmmakers, making romantic comedy hits like “Sleepless in Seattle” and “When Harry Met Sally...,” died Tuesday night in Manhattan. She was 71.The cause was pneumonia brought on by acute myeloid leukemia, her son Jacob Bernstein said.In a commencement address she delivered in 1996 at Wellesley College, her alma mater, Ms. Ephron recalled that women of her generation weren’t expected to do much of anything. But she wound up having several careers, all of them successfully and many of them simultaneously.

Harry Levinson, Psychologist for the Workplace, Dies at 90

Harry Levinson, a psychologist who helped change corporate America’s thinking about the workplace by demonstrating a link between job conditions and emotional health — a progressive notion when he began developing his ideas in the 1950s — died on Tuesday in Delray Beach, Fla. He was 90.His death was confirmed by his son Marc.As a management consultant and an educator at Harvard, M.I.T. and other universities, and through books, seminars and his own research institute, Dr. Levinson showed how psychoanalytical theories and methods could be used to motivate employees. He was among the first psychologists to postulate a connection between thwarted career aspirations and depression....

Judy Agnew, Wife of Vice President, Dies at 91

Judy Agnew, who went to Washington after Richard M. Nixon plucked her husband, Spiro, from relative political obscurity to make him vice president and who later stood by him when he resigned in 1973 because of criminal charges, died on June 20 in Rancho Mirage, Calif. She was 91.Her family announced the death.As Vice President Spiro T. Agnew seized America’s attention with hot, alliterative rhetoric — calling Nixon’s critics “pusillanimous pussyfooters” and “nattering nabobs of negativism” — Mrs. Agnew radiated the practical, plain-spoken perspicacity of a superbly competent suburban housewife. Magazines and newspapers flocked to interview her....

Gitta Sereny, Author Who Focused on Evildoers, Dies at 91

Gitta Sereny, an Austrian-born English journalist whose work, which included portraits of Nazi war criminals and studies of youthful murderers, repeatedly and sometimes controversially sought to illuminate the wellsprings of evil, died on June 14 in Cambridge, England. She was 91....A resident of London who had lived most recently in Cambridge, Ms. Sereny (pronounced suh-REE-nee) was long considered one of the foremost investigative journalists in Britain. She was known for her tenacity, her willingness to sit down with some of the most reviled figures of the era and her long, probing interviews — sometimes spanning years — that could prompt her subjects to reveal extraordinary things about themselves.

Gerhard Kallmann, Architect, Is Dead at 97

Gerhard Kallmann, the architect who, with Michael McKinnell, designed Boston City Hall, a hulking, asymmetrical, Modernist building that has been widely acclaimed by architects for half a century though disparaged by many Bostonians, died on Tuesday in Boston. He was 97.His death was confirmed by Mr. McKinnell, who co-founded what was known as Kallmann, McKinnell & Knowles in 1962, the year their fledgling firm rattled the architectural community by winning a national competition to design Boston City Hall. It was the first of many grand edifices they would conceive. The firm is now Kallmann, McKinnell & Wood.

Anna Schwartz, Economist Who Collaborated With Friedman, Dies at 96

Anna J. Schwartz, a research economist who wrote monumental works on American financial history in collaboration with the Nobel laureate Milton Friedman while remaining largely in his shadow, died on Thursday at her home in Manhattan. She was 96.Her death was confirmed by her daughter Naomi Pasachoff.Mrs. Schwartz, who earned her Ph.D. in economics at the age of 48 and dispensed policy appraisals well into her 90s, was often called the “high priestess of monetarism,” upholding a school of thought that maintains that the size and turnover of the money supply largely determines the pace of inflation and economic activity....

Jack Caulfield, Bearer of a Watergate Message, Dies at 83

Jack Caulfield, a former New York City police detective who died on Sunday in Vero Beach, Fla., at 83, was once a master of dirty tricks for the Nixon White House who had his biggest brush with history in the role of a messenger.By all accounts, in January 1973, Mr. Caulfield met with James McCord Jr., a former C.I.A. officer and one of the burglars in the Watergate break-in, to tell him that the White House was prepared to grant him clemency, money and a job in return for not testifying against members of the administration and accepting a prison sentence.Mr. Caulfield further told Mr. McCord that the president knew about their meeting and that its outcome would be transmitted to him.Testifying before the Senate Watergate committee in 1973, Mr. McCord said he was told that the clemency offer had come from “the highest levels of the White House.” Mr. Caulfield also appeared before the panel....Related LinksHNN Hot Topics: Watergate

Gitta Sereny, investigative journalist who chronicled Nazis and killers, dies

Gitta Sereny, an acclaimed investigative journalist whose books about Nazis and murderers delved into the minds behind heinous acts of depravity and violence, died June 14 at a hospital in Cambridge, England. Her death was announced by her publisher. No cause of death was disclosed. Ms. Sereny, a Viennese native, came of age as Adolf Hitler rose to prominence in Europe and became one of the foremost authorities on the crimes against humanity committed by the Third Reich. She also wrote renowned books about murders involving children who killed other children. A 1999 New York Times review of “Cries Unheard,” about a notorious British child murder case, called her book, “an extraordinarily important and powerful work.”...  

Henry Hill, Mobster and Movie Inspiration, Dies at 69

Henry Hill, a soldier in the Luchese organized-crime family whose decision to turn federal informer, and subsequent itinerant life in and out of the federal witness protection program, inspired Martin Scorsese’s acclaimed film “Goodfellas,” died on Tuesday in Los Angeles. He was 69 and had lived openly in Topanga, Calif., in recent years....A native New Yorker of half-Irish, half-Sicilian parentage, Mr. Hill was involved with the Luchese family, considered the most powerful of the city’s original five Mafia families, from his youth in the 1950s until 1980.That year, arrested on drug-trafficking charges and facing the prospect of a long prison term, to say nothing of possible execution by his former bosses, Mr. Hill became a government witness against his past associates. His testimony in multiple trials helped send dozens of people to prison....

Ray Bradbury, Master of Science Fiction, Dies at 91

Ray Bradbury, a master of science fiction whose lyrical evocations of the future reflected both the optimism and the anxieties of his own postwar America, died on Tuesday in Los Angeles. He was 91.His death was confirmed by his agent, Michael Congdon.By many estimations Mr. Bradbury was the writer most responsible for bringing modern science fiction into the literary mainstream. His name would appear near the top of any list of major science-fiction writers of the 20th century, beside those of Isaac Asimov, Arthur C. Clarke, Robert A. Heinlein and the Polish author Stanislaw Lem....

Klaas Faber, War Criminal Who Escaped Punishment, Is Dead at 90

Klaas Faber, a Dutch native and Nazi collaborator who was convicted in the killing of Jews and resistance fighters in his homeland in World War II before escaping to Germany and living there a free man through decades of legal wrangling, died on May 24 in the Bavarian city of Ingolstadt. He was 90.His death was confirmed by an official of the hospital where he died, The Associated Press reported.Two years ago, when the Dutch undertook a new effort to have the Germans return Mr. Faber to the Netherlands or order him to serve out his life sentence in Germany, the Simon Wiesenthal Center, the international Jewish human rights organization, listed him as No. 3 among its most wanted Nazi-era war criminals....

Adolfo Calero, Contra Leader in Nicaragua, Is Dead at 80

MEXICO CITY — Adolfo Calero, a leader of the American-backed contra rebels who fought Nicaragua’s revolutionary Sandinista government and eventually achieved its ouster through democratic elections, died on Saturday in Managua. He was 80....Mr. Calero played a major role in the Iran-contra scandal, lobbying in Washington for aid for his anti-Communist forces and testifying before Congress when it began investigating the Reagan administration’s efforts to funnel money to the contras despite a Congressional ban on such aid.The contra rebels’ fight against the Sandinistas was a centerpiece of President Ronald Reagan’s anti-Communist efforts in the 1980s. But although he called the contra leaders “the moral equivalent of our founding fathers,” Congress cut off financing for the contra war in 1984....

Michael J. O’Neill, Ex-Editor of The Daily News, Dies at 89

Michael J. O’Neill, a former editor of The Daily News in New York who directed its breathless coverage of the “Son of Sam” serial killer, then became a strong national voice for responsible media behavior, died on Tuesday at his home in Scarsdale, N.Y. He was 89.The cause was complications of pulmonary fibrosis, his family said.When Mr. O’Neill became executive editor of The News in 1974, it was the nation’s largest general-interest newspaper, with a daily circulation of about two million. (It is now under 600,000.) The next year, it published the headline many deem the most famous in American journalism: “Ford to City: Drop Dead.” It referred to President Gerald R. Ford’s denial of federal assistance to save New York City from bankruptcy. Mr. Ford never actually said “drop dead,” however well the phrase captured his point, and thought the headline cost him the White House....

Louis H. Pollak, Civil Rights Advocate and Federal Judge, Dies at 89

Louis H. Pollak, a federal judge and former dean of two prestigious law schools who played a significant role in major civil rights cases before the Supreme Court, including the landmark Brown v. Board of Education desegregation case, died on Tuesday at his home in Philadelphia. He was 89.The cause was congestive heart failure, his wife, Katherine, said.For 28 years, before President Jimmy Carter appointed him to the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania, Judge Pollak had volunteered his services to the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund. He did so even during his tenures as dean of the Yale and University of Pennsylvania law schools.Recruited in 1950 by the defense fund’s director, Thurgood Marshall, who later became an associate justice of the Supreme Court, Mr. Pollak was a member of the legal team that spent several years preparing the plaintiff’s briefs for Brown v. Board of Education....

Horst Faas, Photographer Who Showed Horrors of War, Dies at 79

Horst Faas, a two-time Pulitzer Prize-winning war photographer who later was editor of The Associated Press staff in Saigon that produced some of the most haunting photographs of the Vietnam War, died Thursday in Munich. He was 79....Mr. Faas covered wars in the Democratic Republic of Congo and Algeria in the late 1950s before being sent to Vietnam in 1962. Though seriously wounded in a jungle rocket attack in 1967, he remained in what he called “this little bloodstained country” until 1973, shortly before the American military withdrawal.Mr. Faas earned Pulitzers in 1965 for combat photographs from Vietnam and in 1972 for his coverage of the conflict in Bangladesh....